Saturday, February 2, 2013

Lagniappe: 15 Things You Should Know About New Orleans

This has nothing to do with TV and everything to do with my beloved New Orleans, so I had to share considering the Super Bowl is tomorrow and Mardi Gras is only a week and a half away. Big shout out to Kenny Belau for authoring this little gem and sharing it with the Who Dat Nation via Facebook. 15 things you need to know if you are visiting New Orleans or
watching any of the horrible pre-game New Orleans fluff pieces before
the Super Bowl:1: We are NOT CAJUNS! Cajuns live West of
here and were never in New Orleans. We're Creole by fact, which is not
Cajun. If you meet someone from New Orleans who says that they are
Cajun, they are 1 of two things: Really stupid... or Cajun.2: We
DO NOT PRONOUNCE IT "N'awlins". Not sure what Middle Eastern T-shirt
shop owner came up with that, but it's not from us. We say it like:
"nu-ARE-lins". Some parts of town say it: "nu-AW-lee-ins". But we do NOT
friggin say N'Awlins. It sounds stupid and if you're a TV personality,
quit saying it!

3: We ARE NOT COUNTRY or SOUTHERN. Would you call
Miami "Southern"? No. We don't wave rebel flags, wear cowboy boots or
know how to do the 2-step. Nothing wrong with "Country". We're
surrounded by "Country", most of us have family who are "Country". But
we identify more with New York than anywhere else. Our ancestory and New
York's ancestory are almost identical, except we had French and Spanish
beginnings. Everything else is the same. The same Irish influx, the
same Italian influx, the same German influx, plus we had a lot of
Caribbean people come here, mainly from Haiti. Does that sound Country?
4: We DO NOT Speak with Southern accents. Many say we sound
something like Brooklyn. I call it "Brooklyn with a dash of stupid".
Just watch our local commercials and you'll see what I mean.5:
We do not eat clams. Our waters are FULL of clams but we don't serve
them. Why? because we have Oysters. They are better. Much better. Better
by miles and miles and miles. Like how the SuperBowl is better than all
other sporting events combined.

6: You are as safe here as you
would be in any major city. Yes, we have a LOT of murders, but if you
aren't selling crack to a guy in a 1998 Escalade, you won't be catching
any bullets. However, don't stand on the sidewalk yapping away on your
iPhone. An iPhone is worth about 3 days worth of crack to a crack head.
And if you're fat, you can't run down the crack head who snatched your
iPhone out of your hand. He's faster than you for at least 1 city block.

7:
Mardi Gras is as much for families as it is for the drunken college
student found face down in a river of party gravy. Just pick your
neighborhood wisely and you can see or not see whatever you want. It's
the best time of year, in the best city on the planet.8: We
don't care where you are from. Seriously. No place is better than here
so if you tell us where you're from, you might hear back "well I'm from
right here, bitch", knowing that we just "1-upped" any response you
might have about your musically impared town. We don't give a shit.
Especially people from Boston. We don't give a damn about Boston or
anywhere else. No one here ever leaves. Most people here don't even
travel. That's a fact. We don't want to leave. Even Katrina couldn't get
us to leave. New Orleans has the highest "nativity rate" in the
country. Meaning: is your mother from here? is your father from here?
and do you live here? Yes and you're a true native. No other city is
even close. We're over 80% in that statistic. We've got better food,
better music, better looking chicks, worse streets, the most corrupt
politics, the worst education, the hardest core of criminals, better
desserts including King Cake and we'll shout you down about all of it.
Come here, enjoy yourself and tell us you're never going to leave. But
we don't give a shit about Boston!

9: We eat crawfish. They're tiny lobsters. If you're from Boston, you'll love em.10:
The Saints should be in the Super Bowl. Period. Watch any TV program
this weekend about the Superbowl and you'll see tons of Saints jerseys
in the crowd. This is a city-wide, organized "Screw you" to the NFL. Our
entire 2012 season was stolen by mismanagement of the NFL by an
ambitious A-hole named Rodger Goodell. He penalized the Saints for
things that were later disproved and overturned in court, but the Saints
paid the price by having our coach held in house arrest and taking away
his cell phone. Goodell is here this week and if he knows what's good
for him, he won't eat anything while in town. Ever. People here are
insane about the Saints and this man's lack of clarity and overreaching
of his authority has cost the Saints an entire season. Ask any man
wearing a Saints jersey this week if he'll take a murder rap for Sean
Payton or Drew Brees if either men were to fly off and stick a knife
through Goodell's eye. Well, you'd have a line of other Saints jersey
wearers standing in line behind the first one, ready to serve the time.
Did the Saints do something wrong? Probably. But they were made
scapegoats for the entire "head injury" scandal that the NFL is
currently trying to defend in court and the Saints did nothing every
other team was doing. The whole thing stinks of corruption.

11:
Take a Street Car ride. Take the green one and don't call it a
"trolley". Trolleys are in San Francisco. The Street Car will take you
Uptown, down St. Charles Avenue, past some of the most scenic places
you'll ever see in a major city. We're not just Bourbon Street and naked
breasts. Take a ride to the other parts of town in between texting your
buds pictures of naked breasts. Breasts are great, but you might even
see better breasts on the natives.12: If there's a line waiting
to eat, you're probably at a tourist trap, walk on. There are only 2
restaurants where a local will wait to eat and you don't know of either
of them. We have more 4 and 5 star restaurants than any other city in
the country, especially Boston. And we won't wait for it. Just step out
of line and ask a local where to eat. If you saw it on the food channel,
it probably sucks by now.13: Find Magazine Street. Walk down it until you wear holes in your shoes. Really.14:
Ride the Ferry across the river. It's free for pedestrians and you'll
have a better photo-op than any other place in the city. It's at the
foot of Canal Street.

15: Move here! Houses are pretty reasonable
in some areas, but if you want to look in the older areas, you can pick
up a fixer-upper for next to nothing. Give yourself a year to get it
ready and deal with contractors, but you'll end up with a 200 year old
masterpiece with a yard for the price of a small condo in Boston. We've
got more tech companies moving here these days than Silicon Valley. You
can ditch one of your cars and ride that bike you paid too much for. Our
winters are... well... look outside, it's February and it's 65. The
cost of living is cheaper than you would expect. Get here before all
that changes. The people will welcome your talents and brains like the
return of the prodigal son. There's a lot you'll have to forgive living
here, but there's a lot you'll never get anywhere else (See #8)